Pinterest is a powerful source of business for enterprises of all size. Whether you’re a large brand with many employees or a solo creative entrepreneur, there are sales to be made on Pinterest, without the need for a large marketing budget.
Your first chance to make an impression with Pinterest users comes with a properly packaged profile for your business. If you haven’t done so, you’ll need to create a business account with Pinterest.
Even sole proprietors need to set up a Pinterest business account according to their terms of service. Plus, you’ll have access to certain features that are otherwise unavailable to personal accounts.
If you want to keep your personal and business accounts separate, that’s fine. Otherwise, you can convert your personal account to a business one. Here’s how.
Convert to Business Account
Log in to Pinterest and go to their business conversion page. Unlike a personal account which has separate fields for first and last name, business accounts have one name field that’s 37 characters long.
Enter your business name or keep your personal name if you so choose. You have a chance to use some keywords here, so make the most of the opportunity.
Choose the category of your business, enter your website URL and you’re done!
Edit Your Pinterest Profile
Now it’s time to edit the information in your profile to maximize its effectiveness.
Business Name
If you’re a company, use the name with which your prospects and customers will be familiar.
But what if you’re a creative entrepreneur who’s the CEO of everything? If you currently use your personal name, you can use that for your business name too. Just remember that you’ve got 37 characters to work with, so take advantage of the remaining space.
Try to fit in a keyword that works for SEO purposes. Pinterest is a search engine, so do everything you can to make it easier to be found. Think of how you want people to see you. In my case, I use “Stephen Jeske Growth Marketer” because that’s something for which I wish to be known.
Notice what happens when someone searches Pinterest for “growth marketer”? My name pops up because it’s part of my business name.
If you’re a kitchen garden designer, put that after your name. If DIY projects best describe you, then maybe “DIY Maven” would be more appropriate.
Picture
Whether you’re a company with a logo or an individual using a photo, the image needs to be of high quality. That means no selfless or logos that look like they were created using MS Paint.
Whatever you choose to upload, it should match your other social media profiles. Consistency is the easiest way of improving your corporate or personal brand. Uniformity implies stability, dependability, and reliability; attributes that ultimately lead to sales.
Username
Your username does not appear visible on your profile. But it does form part of the URL that people may use to find you on the Internet. Your brand name is the most important so use it here. Bonus points if you can incorporate a keyword.
About You
There are only 160 characters available in this field, so make sure they count! Think keywords for SEO but write for humans. For my profile, I included a call-to-action (CTA) to encourage people to sign up for my weekly newsletter. Where possible work in a CTA without sounding spammy. Depending on your situation, a CTA may not be appropriate.
Don’t worry if you can’t naturally include a CTA. In the case of ViralWoot, one sentence says it all. It’s like an elevator pitch where sometimes less is actually more.
Mike Allton has done an excellent job combining both professional and personal aspects into one bio. The first sentence states his professional experience while the second sentence a personal and heart-warming touch. This profile was definitely written for humans, but with an SEO touch.
Location
Adding your location in the form of city and state brings a personal touch without revealing too much detail. If you’re a distributed company, like ViralWoot, that’s located everywhere, then say so. If prefer your location to remain more private, consider using just your state and country. It’s enough to create a personal bond while still providing some measure of privacy.
Website
Enter in the URL of your site and hit the confirm button. You’ll be provided with a tag that you can copy and paste into you website’s index.html file. This code needs to go into the <head> section. Some WordPress themes let you do this by pasting the code into an “analytics tracking field” in the dashboard. The theme then inserts it into the appropriate spot in the header.
An alternate way of verifying your site is to download a particular HTML file and upload it to your site. Either way, you will need access to your site to provide confirmation to Pinterest.
Once you’ve confirmed your site, you’ll be able to see what people pin from your site and adds your logo to any pin originating from your site.
Social Network
The settings dashboard controls what social links appear on your profile. You can link to Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Facebook and Google+ connect only with personal accounts. Since you’re using Pinterest for business purposes, you may not want to connect your personal social media accounts to your professional Pinterest profile.
Creating the perfect Pinterest profile doesn’t take a lot of work and will pay dividends for years to come. Take the time to get it right, and you’re sure to get more traffic back to your site. That’s always a good thing.
Is there a good Pinterest profile we should know about? Tell us in the comments below.